Rock 'N Seoul

On this edition of Cy Recommends, I’m bringing a group I discovered through another. A few years ago I fell in love with a rap duo called ILLAP. Comprised of rapper Jjang Youseok and DJ/producer DJ DOL, the group’s music was aggressive, irreverent, and gripped me from the moment I heard the first notes of their title song. But after their first album they stopped making music for unknown (to me) reasons. In my search to find out more about what the duo was up to I ventured over to Jjang You’s YouTube channel. Turns out the lad’s been busy in the three years since I’d found out about ILLAP.

This time around he was joined by another rapper (J Flow) and a different DJ/producer (arwwae). Together this trio of misfits made up group WAVISABIROOM. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but being as I’d given my heart to ILLAP some time ago, I decided to give it a shot. I mean anything Jjang You’s involved in has to be something beyond my imagination.

Well… I wasn’t wrong!

In what seems like a complete 180 from his work with DJ DOL, WAVISABIROOM ventures back to the boom-bap of early ’90s hip-hop, drawing from A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, and Lords of the Underground. The music is steezy as all hell—making sense of the concoction of words that is their moniker (wavy as fuck with flow and delivery to match).

It’s obvious Jjang You hasn’t lost any of his sauce; however, J Flow and arwwae are new to me. It’s no mistake “Flow” is the man’s name. His delivery is smooth as silk, but it’s got a bite to it like good cognac. And arwwae…? The man knows his music, knows how to mix it and make it just as dilectable as the words sewn into it.

Like I said, I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I certainly wasn’t expecting this love note to the likes of ATCQ. The music is just lush, the rhymes pronounced and as powerful as they’ve ever been in the case of Jjang You. (Can you tell I’m kind of in love with him?) If you were already a fan of Jjang You and ILLAP, do yourself a favor and please check out WAVISABIROOM. They just released their third EP, VIBE, at the end of March. So you’ve got no excuse!

You can find out more about WAVISABIROOM at:
iTunes
arwwae’s Bandcamp
arwwae’s Twitter
J Flow’s Soundcloud
J Flow’s Twitter
Jjang You’s YouTube
Instagram (WAVISABIROOM, Jjang You, J Flow, arwwae)
Facebook